1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a device and to a process for transferring packaged material to a transport system or to a storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Devices for transferring packaged material are used, for example, to transfer blister packs to the transport system of a cartoning machine. In the area of blister pack transfer, a device is known from EP 1 602 584 A1 in which the individual blister packs are conveyed by a vacuum belt, one by one, parallel to the direction in which the transport system is moving, and are deposited in stacks in a cassette module of a transfer unit. The cassette module can in turn be moved in synchrony with the transport system. During the parallel movement, the stacks of blister packs are pushed by pushers into the individual receptacles of the packaged material transport system. Then the cassette module travels back to the starting position again, where it is refilled with blister packs by the vacuum belt. The throughput of a device such as this, however, is too low in certain cases.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,979 discloses a device for transferring blister packs to a moving blister pack transport chain, in which two parallel lines of blister packs are transported by two separate conveyor belts. A pickup unit picks up the blister packs, which are initially arranged in parallel rows, and forms a stack of two blister packs, one on top of the other, on each of the two conveyor belts, wherein the individual stacks are arranged a certain distance apart from each other, and the stacks of one conveyor belt are offset from the stacks of the other conveyor belt. Finally, the stacks of blister packs are pushed together by a pusher transversely to the transport direction of the conveyor belts to form a line, so that a row of closely spaced blister pack stacks can be carried onward on a transport belt. In a device of this type, the throughput is relatively high, but the device is subject to considerable limitations with respect to the further processing of the blister pack stacks, because they can be transported only in the conveying direction of the two conveyor belts. Finally, a device such as this occupies a relatively large amount of space.
A similar device is also known from WO 00/68086 A. Here the individual blister packs, which are arranged in parallel rows, are again deposited with an offset from each other on two conveyor belts by a pickup unit. The conveyor belts work in cycles, and the blister packs are pushed out from the their cassettes toward a transport device located between the two conveyor belts, as a result of which a line of closely spaced blister packs is formed on this transport device. The throughput of the device is high, but here, too, the blister packs can be conveyed onward only in the transport direction of the conveyor belts, and the device again occupies a relatively large amount of space.